condition of the house? No tassels were left. But the worn curtains he ripped clear across, the fraying silk tearing easily. Used correctly, it would suffice to immobilise the servant.
Pointing at the servant, he said, ‘Does she know who I am?’
The woman gave a small shake.
‘Does. She. Know?’
‘I don’t know how she found you. I never wanted her to find you. I never wanted my child to be yours. You don’t deserve—’ She gasped for breath. Slumped. Her eyes closed. He watched her chest still for a moment before beginning again. When she opened her eyes, they were mere slits.
She couldn’t finish her words, but he understood all the same. That she didn’t want him to discover the child, that he didn’t deserve her.
How would she know he deserved no one? Who told her who his family was? Whoever it was had to die as well. ‘Who are you?’
‘Handmaiden,’ she whispered.
To the Queen. She was as high born as possible without being a ruler herself. He knew she must have some noble blood, had figured her for an unwanted bastard. But she had been more. She had been one of the influential ones and she had fallen to this?
More importantly, if she was close to the Queen, she knew his family. Knew his wealth, his power, knew everything.
He grabbed the gown of the servant, who jerked awake. Her eyes, registering his presence, widened before she fought him. ‘Cease!’ he ordered.
She clawed at his hands, kicked. Laughed. ‘Hit me, did you? You’ll pay for that.’
He dragged her to the iron railing. ‘I’ll pay for nothing.’
‘Cilla,’ the noblewoman whispered.
He grasped her hands to tie the ripped silk curtain around her wrists.
‘You’ll pay,’ Cilla sneered. ‘You’ll pay or your daughter will never be safe from—’
The slice across the servant’s neck was clean, precise. A mere splattering of her blood and it was over. His hand holding the dagger remained steady as he wiped the blood off with the servant’s gown.
The woman on the bench was silent, but Reynold felt her shocked eyes on him. Knew the child was awake and watching him as well.
‘You knew all along who I was,’ he said, sheathing the dagger and standing to his full height. His eyes stayed only on the corpse at his feet as a familiar weariness overtook him. He was so tired of killing.
‘I...’ she said. He swung his gaze to hers. They widened in fear as they should. He didn’t care what she saw in his eyes. She wouldn’t live long enough to tell.
‘I saw...you at court,’ she said, licking her lips. ‘Then in the carriage.’
No one had told her who he was...and she had told no one who he was. Even as she carried his child. While she couldn’t earn coin, while she grew sick. A hint to his family and that child, squashed between her rotting body and the mouldy bench, would have been used against him.
Everyone was alive, so he knew she had told no one of this child because she didn’t want anyone to know it was... It was—
Two steps over and he snatched the child. No cries, no sounds. Was it mute? Was it deaf? It was aware, as he was in that moment. Dim light, but enough to see what he thought he never would. Grey eyes. Black hair. A girl by all accounts. But his.
His.
An almost keening sound burst from deep in his chest. One he barely held in check. But the emotion was there and it flooded him, made his knees weak and he locked them tight. If he fell.... Below his feet was the blood of sickness and human waste.
His child wouldn’t touch any of this. Shouldn’t be touching him, but he couldn’t let her go. Now that he held her, now that he knew the truth. That hope, that longing, coiled around his blackened heart. Everything within him changed.
His.
This child...this child was vulnerable. To him, to the elements, to his family. To the sickness saturated into the air they breathed.
‘Foolish woman!’
He could kill her for risking his life, for risking his child’s. Was his reputation so horrific she thought this was better?
The answer was obvious. Of course she did—and perhaps she was right. Death was here, but it was an honest one. He hadn’t been honest since he was a babe. All softer emotions were wrenched from him. They had been replaced with survival, and tricks, and games and weapons a long time ago.
‘What is her name?’
Brows drawn in. ‘You...are different.’
Over several years, he’d threatened many, killed more than that. Relished his brother’s murder by another’s hand. Black deeds left scars visible to all.
‘You...wanted to spare her.’
The servant. ‘A ridiculous lie,’ he lied.
‘You want to keep...’ a harsh breath ‘...the name I gave her. Different. You never asked for mine. It’s Grace,’ she whispered.
For the first time, he looked at the child he held. Grey eyes absorbing him. No greed, no cruelty. Nothing of his life or her mother’s affecting her. Yet she watched him. Watched him. Grace. Yes, the name was hers.
‘I’ll send a healer,’ he said, having no intention of returning.
The woman released a defeated sound. It was as grief stricken as the sounds he heard before she knew he was here. Before she knew he’d come to take the child.
‘No,’ she said, one hand raised to stop him. ‘Take me.’
A rustling and she pushed the blankets covering her to the floor.
He was accosted by the sight, by the smell. This was the decay, not the house or the chamber pot or the bloody coughs. The decay was her flesh decomposing while she still lived.
She wanted him to kill her. Before he could check himself, he glanced at the servant.
Her eyes widened as she took in his hesitancy. ‘You...can’t?’
Of course he could. He needed to. It was...the child. He didn’t want to kill in front of her.
‘You’d let me suffer?’
Legs, shredded. Mere holes to her bones. She was no more than a corpse still alive. And she was in so much pain. Why was he caring?
‘No one,’ she repeated, ‘can save me.’
No. No, they couldn’t.
‘I need you to kill me. What will you tell her? That you let me die...in agony?’
For the first time in years,
